


Justice is Blind

by freifraufischer



Series: Reluctant Adventures of Emma Mills [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-20
Updated: 2015-01-20
Packaged: 2018-03-08 07:47:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 10,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3201176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freifraufischer/pseuds/freifraufischer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma was taken by the Evil Queen to be raised as her own daughter in Storybrooke. 28 years later Emma Mills and her son Henry have moved back home when she takes the job as Storybrooke's district attorney. Yet what you can ignore as a child looks very different as an adult.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The Black Knights were vicious, ruthless killers, with no honor and loyalty only to her stepmother's gold purse. Snow had known that since she was a pampered princess running for her life. Before she learned many other hard lessons in the rough world and hard life of a bandit. She had supposed when the men chased her, that they were dreaming of the riches the Queen would bestow on them if they brought her the heart of Snow White. She wouldn't have put it past her stepmother. Once upon a time, even when she was running, she had held hopes that Regina could be reasoned with. That fences could be mended. That the woman she had met so many long years ago was still in there.

But we all must put away foolish things when we reach adulthood. Especially when you have responsibilities such has a husband, a child, and a kingdom to care for. The blade at her throat hadn't bothered her. She knew from Rumpelstilskin that Regina couldn't hurt her in the test. But it was the malevolent crazy eyes that haunted her. There was no love in there anymore, not for her, and not for anyone. The glimpse she had gotten of Regina's pain on that windy hillside the day she bit the apple had been a mirage.

The queen was incapable of love. And now her foolish hope was going to cost them all.

She stumbled through the carnage of the castle, how she managed to walk so soon after giving birth she had no idea. Truthfully she had no idea how she managed to get from her bed chambers to the nursery. Over the bodies. How had Regina had so many men willing to die for her now? She wasn't a queen anymore... yet the halls were full of bodies. Both their own knights and the men in black.

What she never expected to see, what she had never prepared herself for, was Charming. David was laying on the floor of the nursery. His shirt covered in blood and a small pool forming around him as his life force bleed out of him. The distant clash of swords and thunder from the curse faded, and all she could see was David. She cradled him in her arms, crying for only the fairies probably knew how long, that she didn't hear her enter.

"Don't worry dear, in a moment you won't even remember you knew him, much less loved him." The Queen's mocking voice came from above her and she looked up through watery eyes.

"Why are you doing this?" It seemed like the only question she ever asked Regina when they encountered each other these days. Long gone were the days in which she felt like she could talk to her stepmother about anything.

"Because this will be my happy ending." Her smile didn't reach her eyes, and Snow imagined she saw swirling blackness behind them. She turned to her knights as they entered to report. "The child?"

Snow knew, knew in her soul, that they had won. She had hope that Emma had gone through the magic wardrobe to save them all. She started to smile... until she heard the crying. How had she not heard the crying before?

"Here your majesty."

Regina turned with malevolent eyes. As if she was prepared to snap the newborn's neck as the guard handed the bundle over. But instead of the act of evil Snow expected, in horror and resignation, Regina took her daughter in her arms, looked down into her eyes, and the darkness softened.

And as the curse hit Regina rocked her enemy's daughter in her arms. "My happy ending."

Emma Mills hadn't lived in Storybrooke in nearly a decade. Not since she'd gone off to college, her volvo station wagon filled with everything she owned and her mother waving from the front porch of the mayoral mansion. She had been sure that her mother was crying, but Regina never liked to let Emma see her cry, so she was waving from the house rather than standing at the end of the driveway. Emma had once joked with a friend at Brown that she thought her mother more the type to try and move into her dorm room rather than let go, but to her eternal gratitude, Regina had not. Not even when she found herself pregnant with Henry, and Neal had disappeared like the cockroach he was. Though there had been a conversation about responsible birth control which was infinitely more awkward than the birds and the bees lecture had been when she was twelve.

She and Henry came for holidays of course, and she called her mother once a week, but Storybrooke as an adult always seemed to her more of a haze. A dreamy place from some sort of Norman Rockwell painting. Completely with the dreary skies. Because no one knew how cold Maine could actually be like someone who was actually from down east. And certainly not like any city she'd lived in. Not Providence, or New Haven, or Boston. But sometimes, the spirit calls you home, and she found herself wanting for Henry the kind of safe childhood she'd had. In a town where there were no bad guys behind every corner.

She blamed her job for that fear of course. She had worked for the Suffolk County District Attorney's office since she'd gotten out of law school. Putting away bad guys had always been what she wanted to do, when she was a little girl she'd wanted to be a cop, but her mother stirred her to safer, more respectable paths. She'd gone from dealing with petty crimes, to major, high profile cases. And it was a child's murder that drove her home. During the months of the trial she couldn't stop seeing those crime scene photographs when she closed her eyes. And the nightmares about Henry kept her from doing that much...

And so when Regina had casually mentioned-for about the twentieth time in several years-that the Storybrooke DA's job was open, this time she bit. And on her twenty-eighth birthday she drove back into town. Her apartment was still filled with boxes, her office a mess, but given that the only three times she'd been to court so far had been for Leroy's drunk and disorderly charges and one particularly risqué outfit from Ruby Lucas she wasn't in that much of a hurry to organize it.

A little chaos had always felt right to her. Just as meticulous order had appealed to her mother.


	2. Chapter 2

"Mom, you really can't have Henry's teacher's car booted just because you don't like her. Besides, who doesn't like Mary Margaret Blanchard?"

Emma asked with a teasing grin over her coffee at Granny's. She'd been in town for a few months and started to settle into a routine, which included coffee with her mom after sending Henry off on the school bus. Miss. Blanchard, Mary Margaret, Emma had to remind herself, had been teaching at Storybrooke's elementary school as long as she could remember. And there was something reassuring about knowing that Henry would have the same school teachers she had. She'd always known Regina disliked Miss. Blanchard. Part of her-the small mean part of her that made her a good trial attorney-always enjoyed seeing how easily her mother could push the teacher around. Like some sort of mouse caught with cheese. Or maybe that was Regina.

As a child she hadn't really seen it. How terrifically mean her mother could be. Mostly because Regina had tried so hard to keep that from her. When she was a teenager it had caused no small amount of rebellion including a terrifying row practically in the middle of main street that you are pretty sure the town still talks about. Nothing much changed in Storybrooke and things like that stuck in people's minds.

"Miss. Blanchard was illegally parked. I simply called parking enforcement to make sure they were doing their job like a good mayor."

She shook her head. Her mother had been mayor as long as she could remember, and she was good at it. The town ran like Regina's own home. Clock work. Orderly. A little chaos caused by Emma didn't seem to ruffle her because it meant she just had something else to do with her hands. "She was three inches over the line. I'm reasonably sure they had other things to do."

She tilted her head. "Or is this about Graham too?"

That had been, hands down, the strangest fight she'd ever had. Because Graham had kissed her. Not that she minded Graham's kissing in an objective sense. He was a very handsome man, and sweet, but he was feverish, not in his right mind, and not to mention her mother's lover. If she'd thought that had cooled since she caught them sneaking out of Granny's when she was sixteen and finishing her after school job the look on her mother's face two days ago had been enough to disabuse her of that notion. It wasn't jealously, not of Graham exactly, or of her. Some mix of the dark rage that she rarely saw in her mother except around Mary Margaret Blanchard of all people.

Regina put on her politicians face smile. "It's not about Sheriff Graham. You work with him closely, feelings are bound to develop."

Emma reached across to touch her hand. "I don't have feelings for Graham and I'm certainly not about to steal my mother's boyfriend. Even if the dating pool in this town is pretty shallow."

Regina's face softened, and the soft smile of her childhood reappeared again.

"I'm sure there is some prince charming in this town for you, Emma."

"I'd settle for a baron responsible or a lord unafraid of commitment. Do those exist in this town, Mom?"

"Only in stories, Emma."

Mary Margaret Blanchard shifted nervously while she waited. She always managed the volunteers to man the Miner's Day booths, but Emma Mills had offered to help, and Mayor Mills had insisted. Because the mayor could never deny her daughter anything. Not that Mary Margaret had minded that so much when she was a 4th grader in her class, but she'd been a rather bratty teenage bully. The kind that children become when they know they can get away with anything. Well mostly anything. When Regina Mills was angry with her daughter it was a sight to behold.

People in town still talked about that weekend the mayor caught her daughter under the bleachers with the captain of the football team. But a bully turned a lawyer wasn't high on her list of people she wanted to spend a great deal of time with. Even if Henry was one of her best students.

The blond in the nicely tailored suit came through the diner's door, but the smile wasn't what she expected. More Henry than the teenager she remembered. "Miss. Blanchard, I'm sorry I'm late. I got stuck at work."

"I didn't know we had that much crime to keep you busy."

"Crime, no, paperwork yes. I sometimes wonder if paperwork was some curse designed by an evil witch to punish us all." The easy smile wasn't what Mary Margaret expected. Maybe Emma Mills had grown up to be something more than her mother's daughter.

"Shall we get started?"


	3. Chapter 3

The fight had been bad. The worst since she was a teenager when she and Regina could really go at each other. But for the life of her Emma couldn't really figure out what it was about. Graham somehow, but not Graham. He'd been feverish when he'd found Mary Margaret Blanchard, and apparently when he'd visited Emma's apartment to speak to Henry. Henry had finally admitted to that only after Graham was missing and someone had seen his police cruiser parked outside.

There were going to be other conversations to be had once they found Graham. The old leather bound storybook she'd taken from her son for one. And what kind of ideas Mary Margaret Blanchard thought she was putting in his head for another. But right now the sheriff was missing, and late November in Maine was not a time to be out all night in the woods, wandering sick and delusional. She'd kill him. Then her mom would. Then she would again. The search party was moving through the woods systematically, searching the darkness with their flashlights. Emma pulled her own coat more tightly around her.

She used to love these woods. She and Graham would come out here hunting during deer season when she was a teenager. Which is one of the many reasons his fevered kiss had been weird. Still she knew his favorite spots, so she'd agreed to go out with the party while her mom stayed back and tried to coordinate things. She'd teased Regina before she'd left with the party about how she always loved managing chaos.

"Well, I had to learn with you." Her mother had teased. "Don't worry Emma, we'll find him." There was a sadness in Regina's eyes she wasn't sure she could put her finger on. Regina had seemed more and more out of sorts since she and Henry had moved back to Storybrooke. Part of Emma wanted to figure out what was upsetting her. And part of her wanted to pretend she didn't see it. Because Regina had always been strong for her and she knew Regina would not want to be seen as weak and worried.

People in the distance were calling out to the Graham. Emma walked into a small dry steam bed that she and Graham had walked down with their hunting rifles a dozen times. And that's when she saw his body. She screamed out and ran towards him, falling to her knees beside him. "No, Graham... Graham...!"

She called out to him but when her fingers touched his skin she knew he was gone.

His heart had stopped.

She'd made sure a copy of the autopsy report made it to her desk. It was one of the powers she had as the head law enforcement official in town. The only one now that they didn't have a sheriff. That she assumed would get handled quickly. She had leafed through it before getting ready for the funeral. Congenital heart condition. Hard to believe given just how vital a man Graham had been. But Dr. Whale's notes were detailed and clear. Graham had been lucky to last as long as he did given the condition of his heart. A dead man walking.

Because Whale was an ass who never knew when to stop talking to hear the sound of his own voice even when he was typing into a medical record.

"Mom, I can't get this thing right..."

Emma looked up, Henry was standing in the doorway, a tie she'd bought him the night before in his hand, the creases showing several frustrated attempts. She gave him a smile and went over to help. "Are you alright?" Henry hadn't known anyone who had died before. She was sure he'd have questions. Something in the back of her mind tried to remember the last funeral she'd been to... and she couldn't remember. She certainly hadn't been to any funerals as a kid.

He shook his head. "She killed him."

"What?" Emma responded sharply as she finished tying his tie.

He looked down a bit, like he didn't want to answer, "She has you under a spell. You can't see. Maybe you shouldn't. She killed Graham because he was starting to remember. She killed him because he was good. And your good. And she could hurt you too..."

Emma raised an eyebrow. "Who is she? I told you, Graham had a heart problem. When he spoke to you he was seeing things..."

"Grandma killed him. She's the Evil Queen, and she killed him because he was remembering the curse."

She blinked. Twice. And part of her wondered if she made the cartoon sound when that happened. And Emma Mills didn't have any idea what to say to that...


	4. Chapter 4

The reception after the funeral had been made more than a little awkward by Henry's sudden conviction that his grandmother was evil incarnate. Emma had managed to pull Henry aside and made it clear under no uncertain terms that he wasn't to treat anyone like that, much less his grandmother, and that at least brought things from weirdly hostile to coolly civil. And attempts by 10 year olds to pull off distant politeness had a certain comic value of their own.

Or would if she hadn't seen the pain behind her mother's eyes.

She didn't lay awake at night wondering about her mother's pain, and it's not something Regina would have invited or tolerated, but she wasn't blind to the fact that it existed. She had contributed to enough of it in her rebellious teenage years. She'd like to avoid having Henry add to that burden.

Luckily Henry knew not to push his mother too far. Emma had a temper she wasn't terribly proud of and she did her best to keep it in check with him.

Emma had spent half the evening after the funeral trying to talk some sense into Henry. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs were a fairy tale. Fantasy, like the X-Men or the Avengers. The Evil Queen was no more real than Wolverine and certainly not his grandmother. At first Emma thought she was getting through to him. But she'd seen enough people lie on a witness stand to know when someone was giving her a story. He really did believe this story, that the entire town was populated by fairy tale characters ripped from their home by her mother. Well, according to him not her mother, but the Evil Queen. Her mother was Snow White. Who was playing that role in this twisted melodrama she wasn't sure she wanted to ask.

She always tried to talk to Henry like he was a full person capable of understanding complex ideas. Emma was proud of that, but this... this she needed help with. And somehow she thought, calling Regina would be a bad idea, though part of her desperately wanted to. Instead she called Dr. Hopper and asked for an emergency appointment.

Meanwhile... she had someone else to visit.

The school day hadn't started yet when Emma arrived, the thick leather bound storybook under her arm and dressed in a pinstripe suit for court later that morning. She was beginning to think Leroy and her should just set up a regular appointment with the judge. She walked briskly through the school, the sound of her heels reverberating on the linoleum until she found the familiar classroom.

"Just what the hell kind of ideas are you putting in my son's head."

Her voice was raised and she knew, at least vaguely, that it would make Mary Margaret nervous. She'd seen her mother bully this woman enough to know which buttons to push.

"Emma, I'm not sure..."

"Miss. Mills. And I'm sure you do." She slammed the book down hard on the desk. It was a rhetorical move with implied violence. Practiced. "Whatever your issues with the mayor they don't extend to my son. Filling his head with lies about curses and evil queens and heroes and saviors."

"It's just a book of old stories. He has been so lonely, new to town, I thought they would give him hope. Sometimes it is hard to come by..."

"Hope. You see hope in age old morality plays about black and white, good and evil? Do you have any idea what evil even looks like, Miss. Blanchard? Because I do. I've looked at it as close as I am to you."

And Emma actually deliberately stepped into her personal space for that. Inches from her face. "I know what evil looks like, and a small town mayor is not it. But a manipulative small woman with small ambitions that would use a child to get at people too big for her. That's evil. You be very careful what lines you walk with me and my family."

Emma stared at the woman's eyes for a long moment before picking up the book and walking out. She wanted to be out of the building and down the street before Henry's school bus arrived.

Archie had slotted them in for an appointment after school was out, and Emma had tried to explain the problem. But it was a little beyond her explanation, it was so absurd. That everyone in town, except Henry, were really fairy tale characters ripped from their world and brought to this one through a curse enacted by an Evil Queen.

Henry had insisted on using the time to try and convince Emma that the curse was real. "And you are part of it!" He flipped open the book and showed her a picture. "See... Emma. The daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming. You were supposed to be sent through a wardrobe but the Evil Queen took you from your mother's arms..."

Archie raised an eyebrow and looked over at Emma. He'd warned her that they might have to play along with the fantasy for a bit. "Regina didn't steal me, Henry. She adopted me. When my biological parents, who barely have a right to the title abandoned me."

"It's alright that you don't believe, Mom. We just have to make you believe." He glanced at Archie as if he was part of this. She raised an eyebrow at him and wondered if perhaps she would have to have words with him like she had with Mary Margaret Blanchard.

Henry was pulling something out of his book bag. "Do you know what this is, Mom?"

"My yearbook, yes I know it, apparently we are going to have to have a chat about which boxes you aren't allowed to go looking through."

"It's not yours, I borrowed it from the school library."

He flipped a page open. Full of 1990s hair and acid washed jeans. "Here is you mom, and here is Joan duBois. She's in my 5th grade class. And my age."

He said it as if it proved everything he'd said. "It's probably a cousin or a sister..."

"It's not."

"Henry... you do know that there is a difference between fantasy and reality?" Dr. Hopper asked, letting Emma off the hook. "People don't just stay the same age forever."

"They do here. Because of the curse. Because she made them. But now time is moving again and mom can defeat her, and break the curse."

"Henry... I have no interest in defeating my mother." Emma said with a tired sigh, and a pang of guilt seeing Henry's face fall.


	5. Chapter 5

Henry was on a boy scout camping trip that evening and Emma had come over to the mansion to have dinner with her mother. Part of her missed this kind of time with her mother. Just the two of them against the world, like it had been when she was growing up. As much as there might have been some rough patches, Emma knew in her heart that her mother loved her more than anything in the world. More than life itself. Sometimes that kind of love could be suffocating. It was suffocating. But when it was good... it was like no high she could ever imagine. It was a relationship she wouldn't trade for any other.

And moments like this were nice, just doing dishes after dinner. "Leave the lasagna pan to soak, Emma. There is no way you are going to get that clean. Come on, Dr. Hopper gave me a bottle of Scotch to celebrate my re-election. A surprisingly good one."

Regina smiled as she put down the dish cloth and nodded towards the study. "Didn't you run unopposed? Not much of a victory."

"Beating the fight out of your enemies is the best kind of victory, Emma."

"Careful Mom, you keep saying things like that and I might start to believe Henry's crazy theory."

Regina gave her daughter a brief smile before turning to the bar. "So he's still on that is he?" Regina asked carefully, feeling her way on to that subject.

"He's trying to hide it from me now. I think trying to figure out some new tactic sure to make me buy the impossible. Archie says we should try and play along with it a little, ease him out, convince him you aren't some sort of cartoon villain. So perhaps no more vindictive town bylaw fines on Miss. Blanchard for a while?" Emma was a little ashamed of how viciously she'd gone at the teacher the other day, but not enough to apologize. She was still livid and convinced it was part of her mother and the teacher's senseless little war. One far beneath the dignity of the mayor.

"Maybe I can try and spend some time with him. Prove to him I'm still just his grandma? I could teach him to ride."

Emma smiled. Her mother was actually pretty amazing on a horse, though few in town knew it. It wasn't something she showed off. It had been her and her mother's special thing when she was about Henry's age. "You do know mom, the horse obsession is really a girl thing. And that Henry is a boy? And you were still calling me your Little Princess when you taught me to ride."

"You are still my Little Princess, Emma. Even if not so little anymore. And besides, I'm sure I can make riding fun for Henry. I'll just promise more jumping and less dressage." Regina handed her the glass of scotch.

"I hated dressage."

"You were great at it."

"Doesn't mean I didn't hate it," She grumbled. Sometimes around her mom, Emma still felt 10 years old. "But I guess you are right. Some bonding time will help with this."

"I heard you had words with Mary Margaret." Her mother offered quietly without introduction. There was a hint of a smile in her eyes though.

"How did you hear that?"

"You were apparently not quiet, and the school isn't that big."

"Yes, well, I just can't stand people who interfere in my family thinking the world is bright and happy and nothing can go wrong. We've got this mess because she put ideas in his head." She shook her head. "But I probably said things I shouldn't have."

Emma often said things in anger she regretted later. She was just never entirely sure how to take them back.

"You probably shouldn't have. But you wanted to." Regina rarely forced her to apologize. It was nice to have someone in your life who always had your back. That's what parents were supposed to do. "Oh, I'd like you to be in my office tomorrow at 1PM. I'm going to be appointing Sydney Glass to replace Graham and you can give your endorsement..."

Emma sighed and put her glass down. "Mom... that's a bad idea."

"Why?"

"How is it that you never see Sydney is obsessed with you? Putting aside that he's utterly unqualified because there isn't really anyone in town who is, I don't want Sydney to have a gun. One of these days he's going to decide you are leading him on and go after you." Emma had prosecuted too many stalking cases not to see the warning signs.

"I can take care of Sydney." Regina dismissed.

"Until the day you can't. I ... I can't endorse him Mom."

Those words were dead weight in the room. It was the first time Emma as the District Attorney was going against something Regina as Mayor. Emma could see a flash of anger from her mother. "Then who are you going to endorse?"

"Kathryn Nolan asked me to endorse David. He's got a clean bill of health from the doctors, and she thinks he's not living up to his potential."

Regina nearly choked. "David, the sh... animal rescue tech?"

"As I said, there isn't anyone in town qualified and besides, having seen the width and breath of crime in Storybrooke over the last few months I'd say rescuing cats from trees seems to be what the Sheriff does most of the time.


	6. Chapter 6

Henry was torn.

He had wanted to go riding ever since he found his mother's riding medals back in a drawer in their townhouse in Boston. More now if he told the truth, now that his head was full of princesses and knights and monsters. How could he be a knight if he didn't know how to ride a horse? But he wanted his mother to teach him not the Evil Queen. So he'd tried to sound unexcited about the prospect when his mom announced that grandma would be picking him up from school every tuesday and thursday to go to the stables.

But lack of enthusiasm rarely meant that you could get out of it. His mom had even said that it was a way he could spend more time with grandma and see she wasn't evil. But wasn't it obvious, the fact that she wanted to do this was proof she was! The Evil Queen wanted to find out what he knew so that she could stop them from breaking the curse. Well, two could play at that game, and he was determined to get information out of her that could help him prove the truth to his mom.

The first couple of afternoons they didn't even ride, but instead gran-the Queen insisted that they needed to brush the horses and get the animals used to them. The one she presented to Henry was a mare on the small side, chestnut with an easy disposition. He had been sure the Queen would sit around and watch him work. Isn't that what evil did to good? But to his shock she picked up brushes of her own and moved to the next stall over where a powerful and quite large jet black stallion was housed. He already seemed to know her, and nuzzled into her shoulder before she started to work.

She kept an eye on him, giving him instructions and corrections. Explaining that you had to be comfortable with a mount before you could ride, because horses could sense the will of the rider and a nervous rider made for a dangerous horse.

They passed the first week without any actual riding, and without any deep conversation. In the second week she announced that they'd be riding down a trail near the river. Half way there he bit his lip and got up his courage. "You learned all this stuff about horses back in your kingdom. I thought you road around in carriages all the time."

His grandmother, with her dark hair and eyes slowly looked over at him before answering. "I don't know what you are talking about, Henry."

"I mean you were a queen. And in all the stories they talk about you going around in a carriage. How did you learn about horses?"

She gave him a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Henry, I learned about horses when I was a girl. All little girls love horses."

And she leaned over and pat her own mount, who seemed to have tensed up.

"Is that why mom learned?"

"Your mother loved riding. Well jumping really. Anything remotely dangerous. Riding, hunting, I had a devil of a time trying to get her to go to dancing lessons and we shall not speak of those sewing projects she did." Regina shook her head with a smile. "Henry, can I ask you were you got this idea that I'm some sort of Evil Queen? Have I ever been mean to you?"

She knew the answer was no, as did he. But he had to be resolute. "Just because. You are. You are the Evil Queen and my mom has to save us from your curse. You stole her from her real mother."

"I AM her real mother."

Regina said that clearly and he knew he shouldn't have provoked her. So he just shrugged. "The book says differently."

"This book you got from your teacher?" She asked.

"It doesn't matter where I got it." Henry felt suddenly afraid for Miss. Blanchard. The Queen looked like she had dark thoughts.


	7. Chapter 7

Mayor Mills and District Attorney Mills were backing opposing candidates in the election for sheriff. The gossip around Granny's Diner was filled with speculation about the royal throw down between the two strong willed Mills women. After all nothing much happened in Storybrooke, and this promised to be the most exciting thing anyone could remember. Except that time when Emma accidently set the football field on fire. And that had gone away after some mutual yelling, and an accusation at Walter for selling cigarettes to a minor by the mayor. Except much to everyone's general surprise, and some people's disappointment neither Regina nor Emma seemed that interested in screaming at each other. At least not where others could hear them.

Emma had spent much of the week before the debate camping out at the Nolan house helping Kathryn prep David. Sydney of course would be well prepared, but Emma tended to know her mother's weak points. Besides the glaring blind spot in acknowledging the potential danger of her own handpicked choice to herself. Emma had never actually liked Sydney. It was not just her aversion to sycophants, but her deep seeded feeling that Sydney was dangerous. He'd do anything for her mother and eventually he might do anything to her if she ever lost control.

And the last thing Emma wanted him to have when that happened was access to a gun and handcuffs. After debate prep was over for the night, David begged off a drink to go check on the animals at the shelter.

"He does that right before bed each night," Kathryn explained as she started to do the dishes. "He's good with the animals."

Emma gave her a small smile. She'd seen Mary Margaret Blanchard out by the old toll bridge about this time of night more than once recently driving home from work. She couldn't say for certain that there was an affair, but Emma rather hoped she was wrong about that. She liked Kathryn, she was sharp and one of the few people in town really fun to talk to about something other than the year's lobster catch or how the local high school lacrosse team was doing. With David's recovery from his coma both she and her mother had found themselves more and more in the Nolan house. Though oddly not at the same time.

She was actually reasonably sure her mother would know if the affair was happening. But that wasn't the sort of thing she wanted to encourage in Regina. The fact that she kept that close a tab on her own enemies made it much harder to get her to listen to Emma's concerns about Sydney.

And she wondered if she was concerned enough about him to start carrying a gun herself. She'd started doing so during her last case in Boston. The one that made her never want to see the worst of humanity again.

"I'm sure he's great with animals. Hopefully he'll be as good with town drunks. I'd really prefer not to see as much of Leroy as I do."

Emma let the deflection pass and vowed to herself that after the election she'd have a word with David about being a better husband.

Grandma... the Evil Queen ... he reminded himself had announced that she wanted to have him down at the stables early that Saturday. He wasn't sure if he was disappointed or happy. To his surprise he really liked riding, even if it was with her. But he'd finally gotten his book back from his mom, though now he carried it in his book bag everywhere in case she decided it was bad again. Whenever he tried to bring the subject up to his mom, she closed it down quickly. He knew it was supposed to be hard to get the Savior to believe, but he didn't think it was supposed to be this hard.

Why couldn't she see it like he did? He had started to fill in Miss. Blanchard about his findings, during journal exercises, but while she encouraged him he knew she couldn't be much help. Snow White was stuck in the Queen's curse. She couldn't rescue herself. What kind of fairy tale would that be? She needed a knight in shining armor to do it, and that was his mom he thought proudly. If only he could get her to stop looking at the Evil Queen blinded by love.

He leaned his bike against the bike rack at the stables and headed towards the stalls, "No Henry, not today."

He turned his head to see his grandmother. She was dressed the way most people did when they were going somewhere, but he knew for her this was down. She had a bucket of rags and brushes in her hand. "Today I'm going to show you how to clean tack. I've been doing it for you before."

That's what she'd been doing still at the stables after he left? Cleaning? That didn't seem like a very royal thing.

Especially not when he learned what she meant. Every buckle and every strap had to be opened up and scrubbed with one of her thousand soft brushes to get every spec of dirt and horse sweet out. And she was exacting. "You shouldn't ever let anyone else do this Henry." She explained as she showed him how to rub the oil into the leather. "If it's done wrong you shouldn't have anyone to blame but yourself."

"Like with a parachute? Captain America insists on packing his own. Except when he jumps out of planes without one. He does that a lot too..."

Regina smiled at him. He wasn't sure it was a good thing for her to be smiling. But he supposed Captain America was a safe subject. "He should really stop doing that," she agreed, "He's super human not magic. But yes, a bit like that. You should never trust anyone else with the welfare of your horse. It could save your life one day."

"You mean like in battle. When you rode into battle."

She grew quiet and tilted her head. "I'm not sure what you are talking about Henry."


	8. Chapter 8

It was two weeks after the sheriff's election ended before she was sure her mother wasn't still annoyed with her. It wasn't so much that she had taken the defeat personally, they'd agreed, she at least thought they'd agreed, that there was nothing personal in Emma's backing of David Nolan for sheriff. But that was of course one of the many lies she and her mother told each other over the years. Emma Mills knew her mother did not take loosing well.

But at least the temper tantrum had resulted in Sidney Glass falling from her orbit. Small blessings. Sidney reminded Emma of every dangerous stalker case she'd ever worked on as an assistant district attorney in Boston. But her mother was bullet proof. At least Regina acted that way. No, it was how Emma had won. She'd enlisted the help of Mr. Gold to get around the dirty tricks she was sure her mother would pull, despite the fact that she knew Gold would pull some of his own. But it had worked and she'd kept Glass from positioning himself yet even closer to her mother.

She'd take the win where she could get it. Especially because there weren't that many fights to be had in town and she didn't intend to spend her entire time here in political opposition to the woman who raised her. But still, her mother could hold a grudge and she expected not to hear from her for a while, which is what made it such a surprise when she saw her name come up on her phone.

"Hey Mom," She said with a bit more false confidence than she felt.

"Emma, I need your help. Kathryn Nolan has gone missing and David's investigating her car wreck."

For the first time in forever she thought she heard panic in her mother's voice. Kathryn Nolan was a friend of hers, perhaps now that Emma thought about it, her mother's only friend. "Gone missing? And her estranged husband is investigating? Does anyone in this town know anything about police procedure?"

"You did back the dog catcher for Sheriff."

"And you do make the budget that means our police department only has one employee."

She sighed, getting out of bed and struggling into clothes as she continued cradling the phone against her ear. "I'll head to the scene right now to make sure things get done right, and get on the line to Augusta in the morning and see if I can't get some state police here to investigate."

There was a long pause on her mother's end, and Emma decided to push on. "I take it the rumors about Blanchard and the sheriff are true?" Her mother would know of course. Not just because Regina had an unhealthy and frankly strange obsession with Mary Margaret Blanchard, but that nothing went on in this town without her knowing.

"Yes, I have pictures…"

"Stop, I don't need to know the details." The lawyer in Emma always tried to keep from knowing too much about how her mother really ran this town. She knew enough to know it wasn't good. "Listen, I'll call you back tomorrow."

"What do you mean you can't get anyone at the state police?"

Regina asked surprised as her daughter greeted her at the mayor's office door with a cup of coffee. "I spent an hour and a half being bounced around the state government this morning. When I told them someone was missing I was sent to the lost and found office at the state house. And then I ended up being directed to the state police office of internet pornography. And then it just got worse when the fish and wildlife service people answered."

Regina's face was unreadable. Really, if Emma had been a betting woman she'd have said her mother knew why she was having so much trouble getting someone from the outside to come in and investigate Kathryn's disappearance. Of course Henry would say that was because his grandmother was behind it. He was never going to give up on this Evil Queen idea, which was going to make thanksgiving dinner seriously awkward.

"There is only so closely I can supervise David and not have this case go to crap." Emma sighed, and shook her head. "I need someone in there to make sure he does his job."

"You know, I could probably be an unbiased set of eyes during interrogations and the such."

"You are so far from unbiased when it comes to Mary Margaret that I can't even conceive of that distance."

"Well, maybe not unbiased… how about uninvolved at least."

Emma pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Alright, temporarily only until I can get a real cop in here to investigate."

Regina just gave an enigmatic smile. "Of course."


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This chapter takes place in parallel to the events of 1.17 Hat Trick. I am not going to repeat the narration of the Emma/Jefferson scenes from that episode, the reader should assume they happened relatively unchanged between these scenes.

Emma was driving home from the office late at night. She had finally given up on getting someone from outside the town to come in and take over the Nolan murder case. Trying to call the feds had gone even worse than trying to reach someone at the state police. She had spent all the previous day being bounced between of all places the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Smithsonian Folger Shakespeare Library, and the National Park Service publicity department. She was starting to wonder if something or someone was making it impossible to reach outside authority. But before she could think too hard about it she came into work that morning to find that an intern at the National Park Service had sent her 1,500 Smokey the Bear fire safety badges. Overnight.

A murder case was a lot of work, and with the preliminary hearing the next day, Emma had to hunker down and resign herself that she had to deal with the case she had. It certainly looked rather solid, or as solid as nobody cases were. Even with a heart and DNA tests, juries were always jumpy about lack of a body. And then there was the defendant, who of course was going to show up to court wearing a cardigan and looking sweet and innocent.

She remembered one of her first murder cases back in Boston. The defendant looked like Mr. Rogers and had the jury eating out of his hand until she'd shown them the crime scene photos of him covered in blood.

Too bad Mary Margaret Blanchard hadn't been stupid enough to be caught in the act covered in blood.

Henry had grumbled when she told him that he'd be spending the night at his grandmother's because she had to work. But he at least seemed to have learned that 'she's the Evil Queen' wasn't going to work as an excuse to get out of spending time with her. She just wished he'd drop it because she thought her mom died a little inside every time he said it in her earshot.

It was fairly late when she decided to give up on trial prep for the night and head home in the foggy mist. She didn't see the man walking on the side of the road until it was too late ...

Her heart was beating at about a million miles an hour when she got out of the car. "Are you alright?"

She thought she knew just about everyone in town, but the attractive man in the great goat and scarf around his neck was new. "Yes, I'm fine."

Except he was clearly limping, and the human in Emma overtook the lawyer. "You should let me take you to the hospital."

"I don't really need it, my house is just up there..."

He gestured up the road.

"At least let me take you home, mister?"

"Jefferson. My name is Jefferson."

He took her gun when she was out cold. The tea... what had been in that tea? She'd briefly managed to get free long enough to discover of all people he had Mary Margaret Blanchard tied up in one of the bedrooms, but not enough time to even ask what the hell she was doing there before they were both caught by the mad man. In her career as a prosecutor Emma had run into a lot of mad men, and Jefferson certainly qualified. She tried to go along with his demands, and rather to her own amazement even managed to construct a hat that didn't look like a five year old had made it given that she'd never made a hat before.

But that only seemed to agitate him more, as the hat didn't do what he wanted. She wasn't trying hard enough. The magic wasn't working. He kept grumbling about the Queen, and every time he did Emma got a sinking feeling that Henry had been talking about his fantasy to entirely the wrong sort of people. Why she had never been able to teach Henry about stranger danger she would never know.

Jefferson tossed her in the room with Mary Margaret, and both women put aside their animosity of the moment to try and get free from the ropes. The first thing that they managed was the gags. The rope bindings were going to take more work.

"What are you doing here anyway, why aren't you in your cell?" Emma asked in exasperation as she worked.

"I went for a walk."

"You escaped."

"There was a key."

"Damn it David..."

"He didn't help."

"Your illicit lover, the sheriff, didn't help you escape when you were about to face justice for murdering his wife?"

"I'm innocent. But you don't care about that. Isn't it your job to care about that Emma?"

"Miss. Mills. And I'd care about it if there weren't a pile of evidence against you."

She could hear Mary Margaret sigh. "Emma... I taught you in school. You know me. I'm not a murderer."

"I've met a lot of murderers that didn't seem like it, Miss. Blanchard."

"Do you think while we're trying to escape the man who thinks he's the Mad Hatter we can maybe at least go for first names and you can call me Mary Margaret?"

Emma concentrated on the ropes for a bit before answering. She really didn't want to talk about the case. But it wasn't exactly like this was a normal circumstance. "Alright, so who is framing you? Who would have motive?"

"I don't know..." Mary Margaret answered with a quiet sigh. "I really don't know. I mean before everyone turned on me the only person in town who hated me was..."

"My mother. Please don't tell me you are about to accuse my mother of framing you."

"Your son thinks she did."

"My son has more psychological problems than Archie Hopper appears qualified to handle."

"You think he's crazy?" There was sadness in the teacher's voice. "He's very smart. As you know, so special, so creative. And as I think you know... lonely."

"He can't separate fantasy from reality. And I don't know how to help him."

"Perhaps listen to him first before you try and help him more."

"He thinks my mother is a fairy tale villain. Who does he think you are?"

"It's silly."

"We're being held hostage by a nut case who wants me to make him a magic hat. I think we're beyond silly."

"Snow White."

Emma paused. Henry kept insisting that she was really the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming. "And he thinks I'm..."

"Yeah. I know."

"We need to get free."

Emma couldn't have really told you how the fight actually happened. There was a telescope and Mary Margaret had kicked him out a window. But when they went to see where he was he was gone. They were standing outside the house, next to her BMW awkwardly trying to decide what to do.

"I can't stop you from running." Emma finally admitted. "I'm a lawyer, not some sort of one woman army."

"I... I need to go back. I can't run from this. Running isn't me."

"Running is very Snow White if my son's stories are to be believed."

"Well, perhaps I'm not Snow White."

Emma sighed, and looked over at the rising sun for a minute. "Nothing about this night happened. I'm going to take you back and you never escaped. Deal?"

And Mary Margaret just nodded.


	10. Chapter 10

Emma Mills really wished there was a bar in town that didn't water down the drinks and where everyone didn't know her. Granny usually wasn't bad with the drinks but there was something pathetic about drinking shots in a diner, and she expected to see half the regulars in the Rabbit Hole for various offenses in her office within the next few weeks. In a town like Storybrooke the DA's office was much like the watering holes. The kind of place everyone knew your name.

Which reminded her, she really needed to talk to Leroy about dropping the latest charges. The Blanchard murder case was putting a lot of strain on the Storybrooke criminal justice system. Such that there was one. That was one aspect of small town law enforcement she had not thought adequately about before she had moved back home from Boston.

It had been a very long, and very weird day, mostly because she couldn't figure out for the life of her what had gotten into her mother's head. She was acting like Mary Margaret's becoming a murderer was some great triumph. She could swear there was something else going on between the teacher and her mother but she there really wasn't any kind of motive for the level of hate Regina had for that woman. But one thing Emma did know was that level of dislike was blinding. The trial was set to start tomorrow and she was going to have to tell her mother to stay away from the defendant. Which really should be Gold's job, but he seemed to be a terrible lawyer. Almost as bad as that man who got his cousin the bankruptcy lawyer to represent him in a rape case she had prosecuted two years before.

Having given up on the idea of shots in a bar-leaving town to do it wasn't an option because she wanted to get drunk enough not to worry about driving back-Emma picked up a bottle of scotch and was heading back to her car when she heard the scream.

Running around the back of Granny's she met Ruby on the way, who just pointed behind her.

Emma came to a slow stop from her run as she came upon Kathryn Nolan. Alive... if not well.

The investigation into the investigation of the not actual murder of Kathryn Nolan was at least more though than the investigation of the murder of Kathryn Nolan. And Emma hoped she never had to participate in anything like either again.

The best leads as to who was behind her abduction lay in the hospital where the DNA test had been faked. There was enough of a paper trail on the case that she was sure they'd catch the culprit. A darkly suspicious part of her thought she knew who that might be, and she hoped dearly that she was wrong. But then she remembered the way her mother had behaved as the evidence against the school teacher stacked up.

Regina couldn't have been that foolish... could she have been?

Part of her was more disturbed that she thought her mother was capable of kidnapping one of her own friends in order to frame an innocent woman for some vague offense committed in the mists of personal history no one could remember.

"Mom, we're going to be late for the party." Henry said from the door of her office.

She closed the Kathryn Nolan file. "What party?"

"The coming home party for Miss. Blanchard."

She sighed, "Henry, I'm pretty sure I'm not welcome at that one. I almost sent her to jail for a crime she didn't commit."

"But you didn't. And you rescued Mrs. Nolan and proved she didn't do it. So you are a hero."

"I found her in a parking lot, kid, being a hero takes quite a bit more than that."

Henry seemed to think about that for a minute before shaking his head. "No. Not really. Besides. You were invited."

She sighed. "Alright, we can go for a little bit."

A little bit turned out to be longer than Emma expected. She was right, most of Mary Margaret's friends were ignoring her. She found a corner with her own glass of wine and picked up a 6th grade social studies book that was on one the counters.

"Mind if I join you?"

Emma looked up to see the petite woman with the dark pixie cut. "No... but I'm sure there is better company at this party."

"True... though most of them were calling me a murderer the other day."

"So was I."

"But you haven't pretended you didn't. There is something nice about the honesty. I think I need that right now."

Emma just nodded, and tried to find something else to talk about than the case. "This book talks about West Germany..."

"It's the same book we used when you were a kid."

"And it was horribly out of date back then."

"You should talk to the mayor about the education budget."

"Yeah, I don't think I'm my mom's favorite person right now."

"Failed to put me in jail. White Knight fallen from grace?"

"I don't think White Knight's put innocent people in jail. I'm pretty sure in the pantheon of Henry's imagination I should be one of the black knights."

"So you believe him?" Mary Margaret asked casually. A little too casually.

"Of course not. My mother is many things... but a soul crushing evil queen isn't one of them."

Something haunting crossed Mary Margaret's eyes. "Emma... she told me she knew I was innocent."

Emma wanted to jump to her mother's defense, but she'd watched her since the teacher's arrest as well. "My mother is a complicated woman."

"Indeed she is."

Mary Margaret excused herself and for a minute Emma thought she saw tears forming in the other woman's eyes.


	11. Chapter 11

The fundraiser for the school play was a little awkward after the whole false murder accusation. Regina had always managed so much of it, but she decided to keep her head down for now. Emma had heard rumors that she'd been seen with David Nolan, and all she could do was inwardly grown. Emma adored her mother, but sometimes she just wanted to sit her down and ask what she was thinking.

Or maybe it was a just a thing for men with badges. Which Emma could understand. She'd dated a few too many cops when she was in Boston. But that just redoubled her inclination to sit her mother down and talk to her about her taste in men.

At any rate, Regina had roped her in to fill in for her, and Emma had only barely managed to point out that the DA who nearly prosecuted an innocent woman wasn't much more popular than the mayor who had pushed for it. Still, here she was carrying a box of her mother's famous caramel apples and with a Tupperware container balanced on top. She was about to tip over coming in the door when someone caught her.

"Let me get the door." It was the breathless voice of Mary Margaret Blanchard who seemed to have run at full steam across the parking lot to get to her.

"Thanks..." Emma said with a nervous smile.

"Are you here to volunteer? It's still early yet."

"I think in theory I'm here to boss around the volunteers, but I'm not sure I can fill my mother's shoes that well."

She thought she saw a small frown on Mary Margaret's face, before she managed a smile. "Well, I'm sure she sent along goodies. Whatever I might think about the mayor, her treats always make a ton of money."

"Caramel apples, she works magic with apples." Emma smiled.

"You are telling me."

Emma sighed and presented her with the Tupperware. "My mother wanted you to have this. Peace offering."

Mary Margaret's eyes went up as she took it. "Don't tell me, apple?"

"Turnover."

"Right..." She nodded slowly. There was something different about the teachers manners that Emma couldn't put her finger on. But she supposed the ordeal she'd been through changed her. "Listen, it's going to be a bit before they need us, I was wondering if we could get some coffee?"

Emma raised an eyebrow, surprised. "Alright..."

The awkward silence as they waited for their coffee some people might have counted as talking. Truthfully it reminded Emma of quite a number of dinners at her mom's house. Especially now that Henry had taken to going undercover in his operation against Regina. Not that a ten year old was that good a covert operative, and both of them knew exactly what he was doing.

"Emma, what if I told you that everything in Henry's storybook is true...?"

Emma raised an eyebrow. "I'd probably wonder about your sanity."

"You don't think Henry is crazy."

"Henry's seeing Archie, and he's ten. You are an adult. Who if I'm understanding you correctly is trying to tell me she's Snow White."

"I am Snow White."

"Ruby can I have the check?" Emma practically grabbed the passing waitress.

Mary Margaret grabbed her wrist. "Please, listen. It can't hurt to listen."

"Are we about to go into how my mother cursed untold millions?"

"She's not your mother."

"The hell she's not."

"Emma, please, I know this is hard to understand. She's the Queen. And I know you think she loved you. I thought she loved me too when I was growing up, but Regina, she's a very good actress..."

"I know she's not the easiest person to like, lady, but she's trying to make up for what happened. So am I..."

"This isn't' the first time she's tried to frame me for murder."

"The nut case Glass tried to frame you for murder." Emma's voice raised a bit.

"And it's not the first time she's tried to curse me with an apple."

"Wait... what?" Emma's voice was now raised and everyone in the diner was trying to act like they weren't watching.

"This? This isn't a peace offering. It's an attack."

"It's an apple turnover crazy lady!"

"It's cursed." Mary Margaret replied evenly.

"Enough. I'm sick and tired of this nonsense." Emma took the box from the other woman opening it quickly and grabbing the turnover. "I'm going to prove that this fairy tale business is nonsense once and for all!"

"Emma no!" Mary Margaret tried to throw herself across the table, but before she could Emma had taken a bite and slumped in the booth.


	12. Chapter 12

Snow followed numbly after the EMTs as they brought Emma into the hospital. She answered their questions but knew that no matter what the advances in medicine in this world there wasn't a point to it. She'd tried to wake Emma at Granny's, kneeling beside her and telling her how much she loved her. But there had been no flash of light. No wave of energy. No true love's kiss.

Not every curse can be broken with true love's kiss of course. And true love wasn't that common. But had been sure she could wake her own daughter with it. But all she had now was a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Regina had taken her daughter from her. Again. And the sorrow and the rage that she'd felt 28 years ago, in another land, came flooding back. She hung back and waited.

She'd come. She knew Regina well and she knew she'd come and pretend to weep and cry.

She found a convenient storage closet by the door to the hospital ward and when Regina came in she grabbed her and threw her inside. The queen was a scrappy fighter, but Snow had been a bandit for nearly a decade. She knew how to fight, and the short brutal battle between the two women ended with Regina in a choke hold and Snow whispering in her ear.

"You did this, Regina. And you better have a way to fix it or I swear to god I will kill you."

"Can... breath. Emma..."

"Emma's under your curse." Though Snow did let her grip loosen.

"What?"

"I know Regina. I remember. Everything. Now use your magic and fix this."

"I don't have magic."

"I don't believe you."

"I don't..." Regina actually slumped in Snow's arms and tears were forming. She seemed to give up, give up in a way that Snow had never seen this strong and defiant woman give up. "Not here. That was the last of it."

Snow let her go. "How do we fix it."

"You can give her True Love's Kiss." Regina suggested.

"You think I didn't try that?" Snow asked slightly panicked and threw a roll of medical tape at her stepmother. "You poisoned her mind."

"I raised her."

"Why?"

"Because I loved her!"

"You cursed her!"

"I was trying to curse you!"

The two women paced the room, circling each other, "We need help. Someone who knows about magic."

"You can't be serious..." Snow said.

"You've gone to him enough times." Regina pointed out.

"And I wouldn't have been in half the trouble I was if I hadn't."

Snow's instincts were, at least in this case, right. She found herself working alongside Regina, neither acknowledging or admitting that very strange fact. But slaying a dragon and a heroic quest weren't what would wake Emma. It had been a trick. God knows what Gold intended to do with that egg, but it hadn't been to help them, or Emma.

When they got back to the hospital Ruby was keeping Henry away from the room. He didn't need to see his mom hooked up to tubes and machines. The two women walked past the hospital staff numbly approaching the bedside. Snow watched Regina, unable to look at her daughter trapped in eternal sleep. If she didn't know better she'd have thought Regina was broken.

But she'd seen Regina broken before and it had been a mirage.

Regina approached the bedside, brushing a bit of Emma's hair from her face. "I'm so sorry. I love you. I have always loved you." And with a slow gentleness Regina kissed her on the forehead and reacted back in surprise as if struck by electricity. A wave of light emanated between them and moved across the room and outside. Snow felt knocked back and Emma suddenly breathed to life and looked up into Regina's eyes.

"Mom..."

The curse was broken. But so was Snow White's heart.

Fin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of this story, but fear not, the Reluctant Adventures of Emma Mills will continue in Season 2! That story will follow the canon events much less closely, but there will be adventure and heart break ... and even Regina PoV!


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